Renewing of the mind, a crucial calling for every believer.
The challenge terribly drawn out by Paul the Apostle in Romans 7, believers find that the will the good, yet do the bad, and do not will the bad, yet follow through on doing it.
How then, do we escape this outward conflict? How do we renew the mind?
We do not renew the mind ourselves. The Holy Spirt does it?
Yet what then is our part? We believe, we medidate, and we receive the Promises in the Word of God, which are spirit.
Romans 12:1-3
1I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that ye present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God, which is your reasonable service. 2And be not conformed to this world: but be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind, that ye may prove what is that good, and acceptable, and perfect, will of God.
3For I say, through the grace given unto me, to every man that is among you, not to think of himself more highly than he ought to think; but to think soberly, according as God hath dealt to every man the measure of faith. (King James Version)
We are called to present our bodies a living sacrifice, a host for which God may have his way.
"I call upon you, therefore, brethren, through the compassions of God, to present your bodies a sacrifice — living, sanctified, acceptable to God — your intelligent service; 2 and be not conformed to this age, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, for your proving what is the will of God — the good, and acceptable, and perfect.
3 For I say, through the grace that was given to me, to every one who is among you, not to think above what it behoveth to think; but to think so as to think wisely, as to each God did deal a measure of faith, (Young's Literal Translation)
Now the Lord is that Spirit: and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty. But we all, with open face beholding as in a glass the glory of the Lord, are changed into the same image from glory to glory, even as by the Spirit of the Lord.
(2 Corinthians 3:17-18 King James Version)
And the Lord is the Spirit; and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty; and we all, with unvailed face, the glory of the Lord beholding in a mirror, to the same image are being transformed, from glory to glory, even as by the Spirit of the Lord. (2 Corinthians 3:17-18 Young's Literal Translation)
Pastor Joseph Prince has made the compelling argument that the original language of the text suggests not that we look into as mirror, but that we, like a mirror, behold and thus reflect the glory of the Lord.
This is in stark contrast to the general interpretation, as evinced in 1 Corinthians 13: 12
"For now we see through a glass, darkly; but then face to face: now I know in part; but then shall I know even as also I am known."
Now, 2 Cor. 3:18 suggests rather that we behold Jesus face to face, not through a mirror, but as we are beholding ourselves, for Jesus Christ is within us!
How then do we enact, or enjoy this liberty? By meditating on His precious word!
"It is the spirit that quickeneth; the flesh profiteth nothing: the words that I speak unto you, they are spirit, and they are life." (John 6:63)